Cycling, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2025: Waerenskjold surprise winner

Rome, March 1, 2025 - The season of Northern Belgian Classics is opened by the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2025, which despite a startlist full of big names sees the surprise success of Soren Waerenskjold.  

The news

  The Norwegian of the Uno-X Mobility In his career he became famous above all for his very clear positions 'against' the United Arab Emirates and their main activities, to the point of having hit the headlines first for the firm no given in 2023 at the time UAE Team Emirates and then, and this is a story from a few weeks ago, for having deserted theAlUla Tour always for ethical reasons. We go back to racing in Europe and so the inner torments of Waerenskjold, professional since 2021, they run out and the victories arrive. The first on the occasion of the stage 2 dell 'Star of Bessèges, the race this year has become sadly famous for an organization that has definitely left much to be desired, as well as the control of traffic and the presence of cars on the route. The second comes on the occasion of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, with several favourites beaten in the sprint: in order, Paul Magnier, the rising star of French cycling already compared by many to Tom Boonen, and Jasper Phillipsen, XNUMX Vincenzo Albanese, eighth, as the best of the Italians. The winner is Norway for the second time after the triumph of Thor Hushovd (now general manager) in 2009 and he does it thanks to the 2000 class, the fastest of all in a final sprint that not even the walls faced during the day could avoid: he had tried Stefan Kung, regarding favourites or presumed favourites (such as Wout van aert e Arnaud De Lie, rather disappointing), but his attack was short-lived, as were his previous escape attempts.

The statements of Waerenskjold and Van Aert

  With his usual frankness, Waerenskjold is the first to be surprised by his result today, also for a very simple reason. "I am very happy with this victory which is very important for me: I shouldn't even have been here, because the initial plan included only Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, scheduled for tomorrow, but the team called me up at the last minute to replace Markus Hoelgaard. In the final I was delayed by a fall and I tried to come back conserving as much energy as possible. I succeeded and I arrived at the sprint with the tank still full. I looked for free space on the right and I seized the right moment, managing to beat riders of international calibre: this - concludes the Norwegian - is without a doubt the most important victory of my career". The other side of the coin is the bitterness of Van Aert, Only 11esimo. "Today I had no legs. On the Molenberg I got my positioning wrong and had to make up several positions, but it probably wouldn't have changed much. In the sprint I didn't feel confident against all those sprinters and in any case during the day I had already noticed that my legs weren't feeling well and in fact as soon as I started sprinting I understood that I had nothing left to give".

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